Do your journeys ends require you to be on time?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Some journeys are time critical - you must arrive on or shortly after or you'll be in rather hot water. I'm rather like that if I travel in the morning to give a course. 10 minutes late, maybe OK .. but a 50 minute delay because of a missed connection isn't acceptable.    Other journeys aren't so vital.  If I'm travelling the night before a course and expect to check in at a hotel at 9 .. which drifts to 10 .. I can just shrug my shoulders. And being home late is irritating, but I'm forgiven if it's "the trains".  How do your journeys split?

Note - if you sometimes travel on an earlier train than you need because you need to be certain to be there, that's still time-vital!

[Chris from Nailsea]

When I was commuting into Bristol, all of my weekday journeys inbound were time critical: homewards, less so, but I still preferred them to be on time, if only in the interests of my dinner still being hot on arrival.

[thetrout]

I've gone for It's Complicated.

As I can only use public transport. Not all of my journeys are time-vital. But some of them can be time-vital depending on the person I am meeting, others because of a timed appointment etc etc.

Some of my clients, a 10 minutes delay, can land me in very hot water indeed. Others with simply shrug their shoulders as GrahamE says and proceed offer me some form of beverage.

Other services, as with the bus services between Frome - Bath it's easier to name the times of the ones that are normally late other the ones which are very punctual. The former category I can count on one hand which is a good thing

Something that I have realised over time is that everyone else seems to be in such a rush nowadays. The amount of times I've been knocked over by a 'Suit' on an escalator in London is unreal. Hence why I normally use the lifts or stairs if available.

Sometimes at Bath Spa you see a horde of people trying to cram into a 2 coach Class 150 and then moan about overcrowding, yet there is an 8 Coach HST^▸ (High Speed Train) sat just behind which could take a large amount of those passengers to Bristol who would then get seats.

Another occasion when I got caught up in a signal failure at Macclesfield, I was waiting for a train at Stoke-on-Trent. Eventually replacement buses were put on. A 20 something female passenger who had only just arrived at the station (I'd been there nearly 2 hours) barged me out of the queue to get the last seat on a coach to Stafford. When I pulled her up on it and the driver asked me where I was travelling to. The word "Salisbury" was not one that he or the other passenger wanted to hear. The other passenger then started kicking off verbally because I was going to make them late for a party. My response top trumped her as I was going to miss two consecutive last trains of the day and should've left on a train nearly 2 hours ago! Fortunately for her the coach did not have a toilet................... Back to the First Class Lounge it was then

[BandHcommuter]

Thinking about it (as a daily FGW^▸ (First Great Western) commuter), probably 9 out of 10 journeys are near enough on time. So that balance of probabilities suggests that I will normally be on time for appointments, and in the 1 out of 10 where I'm not, I can usually ring ahead to apologise and/or rearrange.

There are some journeys which are more time critical (probably less than 10%), such as to the airport to catch a flight, or for certain business commitments. In these cases I will leave extra time (up to an hour), whatever the mode of transport I am using to get there. Even then, this won't cover exceptional events, for example the time I was stuck on the M1 behind an accident for 2 hours on the way to Luton Airport, or another occasion where I was sat for 3 hours on a failed Adelante just outside Paddington.

[LiskeardRich]

Doesn't matter to me, unfortunately due to the poor timing of "evening peak" trains in Cornwall, the train is no use for work. I am subsequently only using the train for leisure purposes, so as long as I get there, have time to explore the destination before the last train home it doesnt matter to me.

[eightf48544]

I've voted complicated. When I was commuting with Thames FGW^▸ (First Great Western) link and FGW from privatisation to 2005 punctuality was around 80% certainly after Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield.

So I would be late at least twice a week, usually on the way home for some reason. if i had an early evening appointment I'd try and get an ealier train.

Now I am travelling for leisure often to London Off Peak it doesn't usually matter.If I have a connection somewhere eg Advanced from Reading, London terminal, or Eurostar then I would probably go for the train 30 minutes or an hour earlier and go to the Three Guineas or the Oyster^▸ (Smartcard system used by passengers on Transport for London services) Bar provided there's an R in the month.

[Red Squirrel]

I went for "75% or more time vital" - although most of my journeys are 'leisure', there is usually some sort or arrangement to meet friends or family involved and it is irritating to be delayed by more than (say) 10 minutes.

Also, I often have the litter with me. My heart sinks when, after hanging around the station for 20 minutes or so following a delay or cancellation, they say 'Why do we have to catch the train? Can't we use the car next time?'

[trainer]

My reasons are much the same as Red Squirrel (minus the litter!).  Even though leisure is the main purpose and I have enjoyed the occasional detour/delay as part of the day out, nine times out of ten, there is a connection or an event that is a target and a significant delay can ruin the day or potentially a whole holiday.  Where connections are vital, I often arrive an hour or so before the onward journey/check-in deadline and this allowance has been proven to be wise when a cow has stepped out without checking.  Of course, such delays could happen just as easily on the road (don't use the M5 past Clevedon as I write if you are in a hurry), so being wise over timings is not confined to train travel.

When I regularly travelled Yatton-Salisbury for a monthly work meeting, I was rarely late in either direction except when all transport was disrupted.

On the subject of the plea of Red Squirrel's family to use the car, I have some experience of being cooped up in a car with disgruntled children going nowhere.  I wonder if he would agree with me that waiting on a platform for a late train might be mildly preferable (just) to acting as referee in a 'he started it...no I didn't' match from the back seat.  (On the other hand, his children may be of the type who show great patience when all is going pear shaped are always very gruntled in the car.) 

[thetrout]

Back in 2009 I had to catch a flight from Birmingham International to Almeria in Spain. I was flying alone (thetrout hates flying). It was to attend the funeral of a close family member, so time was very critical. My flight wasn't until early afternoon, but I took absolutely no chances whatsoever and took a 7AM train out of Westbury.

It was very fortunate I did... In rather ironic yet dreadful circumstances, there was a one under between Reading and Paddington. I remember they managed to get our train into Platform 4 at Reading (The now Platform 7 equivalent) to detrain passengers at Reading.

As it had pretty much only just happened, I was delayed by just over an hour.

Had I have caught the next train... I would have almost certainly missed the flight!

As always, full admiration and condolences for all those who had to deal with the events

[grahame]

Interesting to see the way the voting's going here, and the comments; although our poll sample sizes aren't large enough to give anything but a very rough idea, they provide very useful food for thought.

Posting from London ... and although I could have made it tomorrow morning on the 06:38 if it connected at Westbury, I can't take the risk on this contract, and it is quite a risk at the moment.  So the 17:55 from Chippenham left there about 10 late and arrived in Paddington just before 19:45. Apologies were made for the "slight" delay, which wasn't an issue tonight.

[Tim K]

I went for 25% or less.  I'm a regular commuter Swindon to London and as I have an understanding boss if I'm delayed occasionally by up to an hour he doesn't mind (plus I can work remotely from the train if we're stopped somewhere with signal).  If I have an early meeting then that journey is time critical but I will usually get an earlier train in that case.

On the way home my wife is normally understanding about train delays but again sometimes she has a school/other event and so I have to be home on time, again in that case I'll usually get an earlier train to be sure of being back in time.

[Rhydgaled]

Not sure which way to vote, but my journeys home from Manchester require punctiality. Firstly, if the Metrolink is delayed too much into Piccadilly (although I try to allow an hour for that leg of the journey, that should take around 25mins, I think) I'll miss the service I have advance tickets booked on. Then, if I'm more than about 25mins late into Aberystwyth it's a long wait for the next (and final) bus (thankfully that hasn't happened as far as I can remember). I did once get the earlier train, hoping to catch the last fast bus from Aberystwyth (the other two make slow detours so to be easier on my travelling companion we often ask for a lift by car) but was detrained at Machynlleth and had to wait for the X28 bus, meaning arrival was an hour late meaning a long wait for the slow bus ensued.

Last Friday I used Fishguard station instead. The 14:30 off MAN connects to last train of the day into Fishguard (Goodwick), which in turn is met (a bit tight for me to call it a connection) by the last bus of the day from Goodwick. A delay of more than 5 minutes and I'd probably have been rather stuck. In the event, it was my private-transport connection that let me down, Dad hadn't been given my bus' arrival time in Newport so was waiting for me to phone, but I'd packed my mobile in the wrong bag (it's complicated) so I was stranded in Newport for two hours until somebody from the bus company drove in and told me where I could find a phone box. Of course if more passengers used late buses the one I was on might have extended beyond Newport and I would have been able to get near enough to walk home.

MAN = Manchester Piccadilly

[BerkshireBugsy]

With most of my journeys TO my normal place of work it doesn't actually if I am up to 30 minutes late. My journey home is different in that even if the train arrives 2 minutes late at my local station(Thatcham) then it can mean I arrive home up to 10 minutes late due to trying to exit the car park by turning right when the level crossing barriers are up and waiting for a break in the traffic.THis is only a big deal for when I am on taxi duty for guides/cubs/etc but we normally get there in the end.